In general, my feeling about subscription gaming services is that they are just yet another thing I have to manage. To make sure I am consuming enough of to justify the cost. Which means I have to establish criteria; work out mathematical formulas. Determine thresholds of acceptability. Measures of effectiveness. It becomes work.
They are no different than owning another piece of gaming hardware, really. With hardware, I have to continuously assess my revisit time with a piece of kit. I feel compelled to do the same with gaming subscriptions. Once I sign up for that foot locker full of content, I have to routinely rummage through its contents, find something to spend some time with, as an obligation; not just as an oh by the way. This is because getting gaming time into my schedule is a deliberate activity.
When I sign up for a music streaming service, I have occasion to listen to music all the time. When I am working. When working out. While reading. While I am getting dressed for work in the morning. On my morning commute. I watch streaming video whenever I am eating. And I have to eat. But gaming.
That I have to deliberately fit into my schedule. So my plans for gaming are also deliberate. Intentional. And my gaming subscription services are not the only thing available for me to play.
I reckon that there are a lot of people for whom their gaming subscription service is their primary way to play. And so for them, maybe it does not seem like such an out-of-the- way thing for them to be constantly rummaging through that foot locker. I figure this is how a lot of XBox / Game Pass people live. They flick their console on at night and immediately go to Game Pass to find something. Maybe.
When I don’t use my subscription services for a while, I feel the same way I do when I haven’t played on my Nintendo Switch or my Valve Steam Deck for a while. The digital dust I see on my subscription services are as real, as tangible, as the real dust I see on any unused hardware.
I didn’t want subscription services when they first arrived on the scene. I allowed myself to be dragged, heels dug in, kicking and screaming, into Game Pass when Phil said all first party, day-and-date, and also on PC. Game Pass launched in 2017. But all of those benefits did not culminate in the service until 2019. That’s when I jumped; two years after the initial promises. Prior to then, I’d always held that enrolling in a subscription service would just be the demise of any notion of time management of available gaming content.
More to follow later this week…
Rounding Off Infinity 